Thanks For The Misery
by Sango-Kadie
Summary: When Michael and Justin are without Brian, all hell breaks loose. [postseries Character Death]


Title: Thanks For the Misery

Pairing: Michael/Justin with B/J and B/M undertones.

Warnings: Character death, sex, and teh angst! And, um, fucking in a church bathroom. It's all good.

* * *

Justin knew that he should have been more strict with Brian after the syphilis incident. He should have refused sex, or threatened to leave, or something. He didn't know why he didn't, either. He didn't want Brian to get hurt. He didn't want him to live out his life sick and miserable until the final dejected days of his life until he finally passed on.

Funny how these things happen.

It was so bitterly ironic how Brian was gone even before Ben was. Michael could hardly believe it, but he was surprised that he hadn't seen this coming earlier. Brian was the slut of Pittsburgh after all. He had always been that way, and syphilis, cancer, and even some small cases of crabs hadn't stopped him from that. Even when he was diagnosed with HIV in the first place, he hadn't stopped. He took more care, of course, but he never seemed to take it seriously. That was Brian Kinney—even when he made jokes about him dying before the age of thirty, or going out young and in the blaze of glory, there was always this air of invincibility around him—always _young_, and _beautiful,_ and even when he was slowly and silently wasting away, he never acknowledged that fact. He was Brian Kinney for fucks sake, and not even fucking AIDS could keep him down and flaccid.

That is, until Justin tried harder and harder to get him up in the mornings. Until Michael had to hold him up on the dance floor to keep him going. It took much more effort for Brian to keep on dancing. Justin knew it wouldn't be much longer when the only time Brian could get some was to offer to bottom. And when he was gone, time seemed to stop. The thumpa thumpa quit beating, people at Babylon stopped dancing, and everything seemed to collapse on itself, disrupting each motion.

It was clear that Michael was hit the hardest by it. He was almost sure that Ben and Hunter, and even himself would have died before Brian did. Brian dying was that one thing that was inevitable, but it never comes to mind until right when it happens. Even when he was lying in the hospital bed, deathly pale and holding on to the sheets wrapped around him, Michael still saw the fourteen year old boy who had befriended him in high school. And when the soft beeping of the machine next to his bed ceased, it ended. Brian wasn't young and beautiful anymore.

Justin was in the room in it when it happened, and the first thing he did was hold his arms out, catching Michael immediately as their two bodies collided. The ground was too hard, and Justin's face crumpled in pain as the linoleum rose to meet his backside, but he managed to break Michael's fall, threading his fingers through his hair as Michael cried into his jacket.

* * *

It seemed wrong that Brian had a funeral at all. Michael and Justin thought that Brian being in a coffin, all fixed up and pretty for his friends to say their last goodbyes would be kind of silly to Brian.

"You know that he's looking down on us right now, fucking an angel up the ass while he laughs at us because we're crying over him at a funeral," Michael commented, wiping his eyes with a tissue while Debbie crushed his other hand with hers.

Justin rolled his eyes. "Don't be silly. You know that there's a special place in Hell made specially for Mr. Brian A. Kinney."

Michael couldn't say he was shocked for Justin's comments. Brian was their world since the day they both met him. And he never loved them the way they wanted him to, and instead died before he could ever mention to them that he cared a.n- hello awkward sentence!.

The ceremony itself was beautiful, sans the fact that Michael blubbered like a baby while delivering the eulogy an d Hunter ran out of the room before it was over. Ben went after him and then said he was taking him home.

"That's a total of two HIV related deaths in only a few years," Ben said, even though Michael understood and didn't need a reason. "Stay here. He's your best friend. You should stay."

"Was my best friend," Michael responded grimly, cutting off Ben's next remark by motioning to Hunter. "Poor kid. Make sure he gets some sleep. I'll be home later."

"Take as long as you need."

Justin was behind him. Michael feigned surprise and grabbed his hand, leading him to the casket. "Come on, Boy Wonder. We need to go pay our respects."

"To the asshole who dragged our feelings on the ground and viciously stomped on them until he gave up and died? I'm starting to think that he did it only to spite us. Just watch, we'll look at him, and he'll be smiling up at us, watching us crying over him, and then jump up, say he was kidding, call us pathetic and go on his marry way, and fuck a random guy on the street."

"What the fuck was that about?" Michael asked, astonished at what Brian's manipulations had done to this boy, the one who was so determined to get what he wanted, that he had left New York, had come back for the person he loved, only to have him die a few months after he returned. He had to admit, Justin had a point.

"So what are we supposed to do? Sit here and reminisce? Go home and find all of his drugs so we can split it between us? Or just throw bits of paper at his dead body while we laugh and tell stories about the times that he made us feel like we were worth more and then went off for his next fuck of the day?"

"yeah, let's do that. Or, we could do what he would do in our situation."

Michael smirked. "And just what would that be?"

"We fuck," he replied, rolling his wrist so that he was holding onto Michael's hands and leading him towards the church bathrooms.

Justin decided that Michael looked good with his mouth open in horror like that, coiling his wrist, trying to wrench it from his grasp. Until he started protesting. Which, in the case of the Novotny's, was more like whining.

"Justin, no! What are you thinking? Stop, Brian wouldn't want this."

"All the more reason," Justin retaliated, removing Michael's belt buckle, swiftly pulling both his pants and boxers in one motion. "Now turn around, and don't talk. Just don't say anything."

If there was one thing that Brian had told the both of them, it was to carry the essentials no matter where they went. On an airplane, on the beach, or at a funeral, Justin carried a small tube of lubrication in his pocket, along with condoms in his wallet, two of each size. He greased a finger, coating it in the substance, and ran it up the crack of Michael's ass before inserting the finger inside, causing Michael to moan, rush his head forward and smack it on the tile of the wall.

"Easy. We wouldn't want this to turn into your funeral too," Justin reassured, his chin barely resting on the top of Michael's head. Michael didn't say anything. He didn't push him away, he didn't think of Ben, he didn't think how fucking ridiculous the situation he was in was. Justin rolled the condom on himself, removing his finger and replacing it with his cock.

A chest full of air released itself from Michael, as Justin pressed into him gently. It didn't hurt, because heaven and hell knew that he had been fucked just as much as Brian fucked, only with a considerably less amount of people. But there was something about Justin that burned him. The intensity of his hate for the circumstances, the surge of anger he had at Brian for leaving them, and the fact that he was being fucked by the little twink that his best friend that he had brought home and never left.

Justin's hips roll, hugging Michael from behind, making sure he didn't run, keeping him stationary as long as he could. Michael let out a sound, mix between a yelp and a whimper, as his stomach muscles flared, and certain other muscles gripped onto Justin's cock like a vice, half of him wishing he could stop him so they wouldn't have to go through with this, and the other half wishing he could keep Justin inside him forever.

It's getting harder to see now, and Justin mashes his forehead into the soft, hot skin of Michael's back. If he concentrates hard enough, Michael almost smells like Brian.

Almost.

When Michael comes, it's in great, exaggerating exhalations. His chest heaves with every breath, swelling and contracting onto the wall beneath them, so that they both ride each swell of air. His legs wobble, and they almost fall into the next stall, but Justin grabs a hold of his arms, holding both of them steady before he lets out a groan and empties himself into Michael. He rests his mouth onto his friends shoulders, taking a bit of the skin in his mouth, calming him down.

"What happens now?" Michael asks as his breathing calms, clutching onto a hand wrapped around his chest as he rotates his head, trying to meet the younger man's eyes.

Justin lets out a sigh, trying hard not to run out, bursting into tears. "The world ends."

* * *

When Michael and Justin leave the church, and say goodbye to everyone, Michael offers to go over to the loft to sort through Brian's things with him. They leave holding hands.

They both swear that they can hear Brian screaming at them below their feet.


End file.
